Germany's VCL Film+Medien is raising an estimated euros54m ($51.4m) through a placing with institutional investors today, which it intends to spend on purchasing "extensive film packages" and restarting its TV licensing business.
The company is selling some 1.56 million new shares and increasing its capital by 10%. The new shares are being offered close to yesterday's euros104 closing price, but will be adjusted for a proposed share split. If the price holds, VCL will bring in euros54m before sale costs.
VCL said that it intends to use "the majority of the proceeds to purchase extensive film packages." Chief financial officer Matthias Roth said: "these are very interesting packages. We expect to close these deals by the middle of the year and to expand our TV licensing business as a result.
"We have been involved in TV licensing in the past. But we now have the capital to build this into our second core business after video and DVD releasing." VCL recently licensed an initial package of 100 titles to start-up video-on-demand company [netCom] (Screendaily, April 11).
Despite VCL's recent commitment to take a 25% stake in the next two films in the Terminator franchise (Screendaily, March 27), Roth said that the company has no plans to become a major film producer. "We may become involved as a co-producer, but we do not intend to be the ones taking the creative decisions."
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